Plan a perfect Passover
Mark the Jewish Passover holiday with a feast that forgoes leavened food and is full of seasonal produce, with guidance from Victoria Prever.
For Jewish families like mine, the festival of Passover (Pesach) can be challenging in terms of meal planning. All grains are off limits, which means no bread, pasta, rice and, for many English Jews, beans and legumes. The eight-day celebration commemorates the departure from slavery in Egypt, which happened in such a hurry that there wasn’t time to wait for their bread to leaven. They ate only unrisen bread for their entire journey, so that’s what we’re commemorating.
So, during this time, the only wheat-based food we eat are specially baked crackers called matzo, which are made and baked within 18 minutes, so do not have time to leaven. Luckily, my daughter, Kitty, adores them with her favourite toppings or turned into a crunchy base for a pizza, and even layered up in lasagne instead of the pasta. It can be tough on tummies, so I try to make sure we also eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.
During Pesach, we make biscuits and cakes from ground nuts (great for gluten-free diets) and eat a lot of egg- and potato-based dishes. When my children were younger, breakfast was tricky without cereal or toast, so over the years, I’ve developed a range of recipes (many based on traditional favourites) that we all now love and look forward to. Many are simple enough for my children to help make and now make for themselves.
As with all foods used during Passover, other than fresh fruit and veg, the matzo should be labelled ‘kosher for Passover’. This is to ensure that any manufactured foods have been produced in the correct way. Matzo meal is made from flour and water and is ground to a flour-like consistency. If you can’t get hold of it, you can grind matzo crackers until fine.
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